Vodka Pasta Recipe <3

This is a favourite easy meal of mine which my sister and I enjoy together. I usually make a huge variety of different meals but every time I ask her what she’d like me to make, she always says vodka pasta. It’s fairly easy but does require a lot of time to stir and watch your sauce. Also if you’re not good with spice try not to go as heavy as I do, my taste palette has developed to the point where I think everything is bland unless I abuse my food with paprika. The ingredients here will serve two people so adjust the sizing accordingly.

Ingredient List

• 6 vine tomatoes, these work best for me since they’re huge and juicy

• 1 red onion

• An entire bulb of garlic, if you’re not a huge fan of garlic go for 6 cloves lol

• Tomato purée 

• Coconut cream, not milk

• Half a lemon, juiced

• Olive oil

• Vodka or whiskey of your choice

• Obviously you need pasta

• Spices:

• Paprika 

• Chipotle

• Salt

• Pink pepper

• Tajin

• Kashmiri powder

• Chilli powder

• Brown sugar

• Oregano / dried basil (either / or)

Recipe

1. First you need to chop the tomatoes into small pieces, about the size of a pound coin. There will be a lot of tomatoes but that’s the point if it’s a tomato sauce. It reduces down anyway so don’t worry.

2. Usually I would crush the garlic but you need to unwrap it carefully and slice your garlic as thin as possible. Garlic makes this entire recipe so honestly I’d use the whole bulb.

3. Dice your onion as small as possible, if you have a food processor use it to mince the onion pieces as small as possible.

4. Pour a decent amount of olive oil in your pot, enough to fry the tomatoes properly. You cannot do this recipe without a good amount of oil so honestly don’t bother if you’re oil-conscious, it’ll be disgusting without oil.

5. This is where I’ll say to be very generous with your spices, but be careful; when you fry your spices for a few minutes in the oil it will strengthen and become more potent. I’m very heavy handed when it comes to the spices so I do about a tbsp or two of each. 

6. Let your spices fry on low heat for around 3 minutes and add your sliced garlic. Continuously stir so your garlic doesn’t burn, since the slices are thin it’ll soak the spices in. In around 4 minutes add the onions and lemon juice then stir.

7. Then in another 4 minutes your onions should hopefully start softening so you can turn your heat to medium. If your onions are small enough they’ll turn into a paste and that’s super nice. Let the onions fry with the lid on for 3 minutes and then add your chopped tomatoes. 

8. This is where you need to be patient and attentive because you have a lot of tomatoes which need to soften and reduce. I like to leave the lid on, which lets your food steam as well as fry, and come check every 3-5 minutes. In the meantime I wash whatever I need to and make a cocktail.

9. Your tomatoes will start to soften and become mushy which is very good. When the skin of the tomatoes start to peel and reduce, this is when you turn the heat to low and add half a tube of tomato purée.

10. Mix your purée with all the ingredients and let that reduce a bit more. The purée is the base of the sauce and soon we can add the vodka 🙂

11. I alternate between actual vodka and Jack Daniels. Smirnoff is fine but please don’t waste your grey goose on literal pasta sauce, Jack Daniels is nice if you want a smoky flavour but Smirnoff is my favourite in this sauce.

12. You need to make sure your heat is on low so you don’t set anything on fire. Add around 2-3 shots of vodka, I usually eyeball it so that the vodka is enough to cover the base of whatever pot I’m using. The vodka shouldn’t be too much that your sauce becomes watery but enough so that your tomato purée softens and isn’t thick anymore.

13. You need to mix very very very well here and then allow it to reduce to a thick sauce. At this stage you’d start cooking your pasta. Make sure to salt your pasta water well otherwise your pasta will taste disgusting and horrible.

14. Some pasta types hold sauces better than others and in my opinion these are my favourite for vodka pasta: rigatoni, penne, spirali and conchiglie.

15. When your sauce has reduced to a very thick and semi lumpy state you want to add a whole carton of coconut cream. I’m not entirely sure how this recipe would work with regular cream because I cannot consume dairy, but if you’d rather not use coconut cream use a cream with a thick consistency.

16. This part is now up to personal preference. Everyone likes their pasta cooked differently even though I think it should be illegal to eat soft pasta. I do like my pasta with a bite to it and sometimes I even like my pasta a few minutes from being considered hard.

17. When your sauce is mixed and fully cooked it should be an off red / orange colour, semi thick in consistency but not so thick that it’s lumpy. 

18. When your pasta is cooked to your liking slowly add it to your sauce while stirring to make sure that all of the pasta is coated with the sauce, if you’re using rigatoni or conchiglie you need to mix really well so that the sauce fills the crevices.

19. Save some pasta water for if the sauce reduces or becomes too thick and then continuously stir to your liking. I like my sauce liquidy so that when you have leftovers it doesn’t dry up. 

20. Serve your dish in a sexy bowl and if you eat cheese don’t do it, it ruins the sauce. If you’d like to be fancy add some coriander, I had to finish mine yesterday so I added it to make the pasta pretty.

21. Enjoy <3, I’ll add pictures of a few times I’ve made this lovely dish. Thanks for reading, if you cook this recipe let me know! ;D